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AIDS and Behavior

, Volume 22, Issue 2, pp 560–568 | Cite as

Acceptability of HIV Self-Testing in Sub-Saharan Africa: Scoping Study

  • Charlene HarichundEmail author
  • M. Moshabela
Substantive Review
First Online:

Abstract

Several HIV testing models have been implemented in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) to improve access to HIV testing, but uptake remains poor. HIV Self-Testing (HIVST) is now available, and may serve to overcome barriers of current testing models which include stigma, discrimination and non-confidential testing environments. A scoping study was conducted to provide an overview of the current literature in SSA, as well as identify future research needs to scale-up HIVST and increase HIV testing uptake. The outcome of the review indicated only 11 reported studies to date, showing variable acceptability (22.3–94%) of HIVST, with acceptability of HIVST higher among men than women in SSA. We conclude that research around HIVST in SSA is still in its infancy, and further implementation research and interventions are required to improve acceptability of HIVST among diverse study populations, failing which policy adoption and scale-up may be hindered.

Keywords

HIV Self-testing Access Acceptability Sub-Saharan Africa 
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Notes

Acknowledgements

The authors thank the Centre for the AIDS Programme of Research in South Africa for their support.

Compliance with Ethical Standards

Disclosure of Potential Conflicts of interest

Charlene Harichund declares that she has no conflict of interest. M. Moshabela declares that he has no conflict of interest.

Research Involving Human Participants and/or Animals

This article does not contain any studies with human participants or animals performed by any of the authors.

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Copyright information

© Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2017

Authors and Affiliations

  1. 1.Centre for the AIDS Programme of Research in South AfricaDoris Duke Medical Research InstituteDurbanSouth Africa
  2. 2.Department of Rural Health, School of Nursing and Public HealthUniversity of KwaZulu-NatalDurbanSouth Africa
  3. 3.Africa Centre for Population HealthMtubatubaSouth Africa

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